I came into this world circa 1990 via Sturm, Ruger & Co. – a strapping young Mini-14 Ranch Rifle. Soon thereafter, I was sent to California and eventually was adopted by a very kind gun-loving family. I was fortunate enough to spend a good number of hours at the shooting range over the years, but after carefully observing the performance of some of the more popular centerfire rifles – the military-looking ones – I realized I wanted to be more than just an ordinary “Ranch Rifle.”

I’ve always felt inadequate bench-resting next to my like-caliber AR-15-style friends because of their awesome military-style looks. But don’t let my somewhat innocuous appearance fool you – regardless of my own insecurities, I’m able to do nearly everything they can do. I chamber the very same .223 (5.56mm NATO) rounds, accept high-capacity magazines and sport the same semi-automatic action (pull my trigger once, and I fire one round, eject the casing, and chamber a new round to lie in wait for a second trigger pull) as do my AR-15 type friends.

The bottom line: pesky varmints (I don’t have enough power to lawfully take deer in most states) and armed criminals intending to do harm would be unable to tell the difference between myself and one of my more ferocious-looking military-style counterparts.

I understand I’ll always be a Ruger Mini-14 at heart; it’s in my DNA. And I know I should be proud of who I am. After all, I’m styled in the likeness of the combat-proven M-14. But I still want a modern upgrade so I’ll look more like one of the cool guns that get all the attention at gun ranges. Even some of my younger Mini-14 siblings now have an amazing “tactical” look. Fortunately, there does exist a massive aftermarket dedicated to making it easy for guns like me to facilitate this type of transformation.

My owner did some research, and as it turns out, transforming me from a boring “Ranch Rifle” into a military-looking weapon would be a fairly easy endeavor. But due to California’s discriminatory gun laws, making such changes would cause me to then be labeled an “assault rifle.” My AR-15-style buddies already have to endure this discrimination (wrong-headedly, since actual military rifles are either full-auto or semi/tri-burst). So suddenly, based purely upon my looks, it would be illegal for me to continue residing in the state I currently call home.

Some people think my friends and I are evil, but let’s be honest here: I am just a tool. It is humans who are either willing, or not, to commit an act of evil against their fellow man. And considering that a common car was the weapon of choice used recently in Las Vegas to deliberately ram into a crowd, killing one and injuring thirty-seven more, it’s clear that there are any number of tools that can be used to cause mass carnage at the hands of what I would call “assault humans.” And indiscriminately outlawing certain unpopular paint colors for automobiles would do nothing to prevent this from being repeated in the future.

I may merely be a wannabe “assault rifle,” but if I had some advice for you humans, it would be to stop electing useless tools like Lieutenant Governor (and governor wannabe) Gavin Newsom, who, like many politicians and members of the media, has little understanding of how I and other guns actually function. He and others continue to promote more useless laws to restrict guns that are rarely used in crimes and in the end only hamper the rights of law-abiding humans.

Worse yet, while Newsom attempts to make it more difficult for the law-abiding to protect themselves and their families using firearms such as myself, he supports sanctuary cities, which provide shelter for law-breaking humans who occasionally end up committing horrific crimes such as rape and even murder.

During the ginned up controversy surrounding the religious freedom law in Indiana, Memories Pizza was nearly put out of business for merely answering “incorrectly” a hypothetical question about catering a gay wedding. Shortly after the incident, a GoFundMe campaign was started and subsequently raised nearly $850K for the owners, who, at the time, were forced into hiding with an uncertain future.

This was not the end result certain groups were looking for. Today, in politically correct America, freedom of choice is limited only to the “correct” choices, and the totalitarian left demands the final word on all such things. That word was effectively nullified in short order by freedom-loving Americans who financially contributed to the cause of liberty – for everyone – in support of freedom of association and religion.

Fast-forward to the Freddie Gray case in Baltimore, and a group of police officers set up a GoFundMe page to provide support for the six officers facing charges in what Alan Dershowitz has called a “show trial.” While most of the facts are still unknown in the case, GoFundMe shut down the page within 40 minutes due to some recent changes to its terms of service. The site had made these changes following the hugely successful fundraising campaigns in support of businesses like Memories Pizza and several Christian bakeries that had chosen not to bake cakes for gay weddings.

GoFundMe proudly displays the message “crowdfunding for everyone” on its homepage, but that is a misnomer, since it has created a set of guidelines to discriminate against the campaigns of certain groups of people. Per the new terms of service, these include “[c]ampaigns in defense of formal charges or claims of heinous crimes, violent, hateful, sexual or discriminatory acts.” While this may sound like reasonable policy, the wording clearly leaves much open to interpretation.

But since GoFundMe is a private entity, shouldn’t the owners just be left to associate with whomever they wish? Or should the government step in to stop the “H8” and use force to require GoFundMe not to discriminate and allow “=” access for “everyone”?

Of course, the government should do no such thing. The free market (combined with a stable rule of law) already handles these types of issues without the need for government to step in. The fact that GoFundMe chooses to not serve a particular segment of the population using its own vague set of rules doesn’t create a human rights problem (as the use of force does); it creates a market opportunity.

If enough people take issue with this policy, an enterprising individual will come along and effectively tell GoFundMe to GoPoundSand by starting a pro-liberty version, and provide some competition in the crowdfunding business (yes, business). This person could profit handsomely by providing the world with a little bit more diversity. While this may come as a shock to those who hide behind the currently hijacked term “liberal,” these very same market forces hold true for pizzerias and bakeries, making the left’s continuous tyrannical stomping of liberty for naught.

One other thing that will drive the left nuts: successful crowdfunding campaigns also help highlight the abysmal failure of the welfare state, and they do so in real time. Private charity is much more efficient than big government. When people are free to vote “like” or “dislike” with the click of a button, more resources end up actually reaching the intended targets (the Clinton Foundation would be a poor example, though). It’s much harder for fraudsters to pull the wool over the eyes of millions of people with smartphones who are collectively making billions of decisions instantly while interacting with others. On the other hand, the massive and inefficient welfare state is wrought with fraud and abuse due to the dependency it creates, bureaucratic self-interest, and the reality that government is able to react only with the speed of a Banana slug on Quaaludes.

Crowdfunding that occurs within a truly free market gives the silent majority a platform to collectively make some loud noise, and challenge what used to be the final word of the left. An unchallenged final word equals control, which is why progressives simply can’t allow “crowdfunding for everyone.”

To allege that NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio was fully responsible for the chokehold death of Eric Garner would be absurd. Nearly as asinine, though, given the available evidence in the case, was de Blasio’s unbelievably divisive red-herring declaring that “centuries of racism” were somehow at the root of Garner’s untimely death. Now, it appears the race-baiting propaganda of de Blasio, Obama, Holder and Sharpton, has finally come to bear fruit given the recent execution of two NYC police officers.

Comrade de Blasio likes to scold America regarding human rights yet embraces an ideology that places people — regardless of race or gender — in an unyielding big-government chokehold. This “progressive” ideology leads to an equally wretched existence for all but the politically connected at its lesser extreme and is responsible for the murder of over one-hundred-million innocent men, women and children (and “centuries” were not required in doing so) at its most.

It’s well noted that Garner was being arrested for his participation in a black market that exists solely because of sky-high cigarette taxes. There can certainly be harsh consequences that one must live — and sometimes die — with for resisting arrest as Garner clearly chose to do. But when government gets to the point where every minute detail of a citizen’s life is micro-managed by “expert” planners, hungry for more power and tax revenue, it eventually becomes nearly impossible to not be in violation of some vague or inane statute. As this over criminalization that degrades liberty becomes more systemic, a greater number of people will end up in tangles with police (who are human and make mistakes) and the result will be a greatly increased chance for something to go terribly wrong.

Frédéric Bastiat warned against these types of legal bastardization in his timeless essay, The Law, written more than one and one half centuries ago.

It is not true that the mission of the law is to regulate our consciences, our ideas, our will, our education, our sentiments, our works, our exchanges, our gifts, our enjoyments. Its mission is to prevent the rights of one from interfering with those of another, in any one of these things.

Increases in the impossible task of central planning assure that things will go terribly wrong thus requiring government and its cronies to create scapegoats to mask-over the inevitable failures. Today, the scapegoat for the failures of the “progressive” welfare state is so-called “racist” cops. Tomorrow it will be what ever the big-government complex, including its protectors in the mainstream media, need it to be in order to further the “progressive” cause.

No, de Blasio certainly didn’t kill Eric Garner, but he, President Obama and the bulk of the Democratic Party clearly support the “progressive” government chokehold on liberty that bears some responsibility in Garner’s death. And the sideshow of anti-police rhetoric turned violent shows they’re willing to mask the failures of “progress” by any means necessary.

Big-brother likes to play really, really rough, so unless this “progressive” chokehold on liberty is released, Americans may as well get used to gasping for air.

The release of the Senate CIA “torture report” has certainly prompted some mixed reactions, mostly divided along party lines. The mainstream media have expressed moral outrage – outrage – over the contents of the report, while the conservative media has rightfully questioned the timing of the release, the numerous holes in the report, and the validity of describing as “torture” the methods used by the CIA. Add to mix the hypocrisy of the MSM ignoring Obama’s dead-by-drone policy that has blown many terrorists and innocents into chunks.

As to whether the interrogation methods employed by the CIA constitute actual “torture,” a Human Events article from 2007 (since we’re dredging up the past) written under a pseudonym by a retired naval aviator (yes, a slight pro-Navy bias is detectable) may help provide some context:

Based on lessons learned from survivors of the brutal North Korean and North Vietnam torture of US military prisoners of war, the Department of Defense ordered all branches of the services to implement comprehensive Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (S.E.R.E.) training programs. Every member of Congress should be extremely well versed on the military S.E.R.E. programs since they have had direct oversight and funding of these programs for over 40 years. [snip]

What actually happens in S.E.R.E. in the field? Classes of 40 or more “students” are put through beach and water (swimming) survival techniques, similar to the TV show “Survivor” but without the rewards challenges. The class is then moved to a remote location to survive and evade prior to entering the US Navy run POW camp.

Once captured, these “students” were hooded, with their hands bound; fully interrogated; and then finally brought to the POW camp:

Arriving at the POW Camp I was kept hooded and placed in a small box, 2 feet wide, 3 feet long and maybe 3 feet high. I was left the fetal position, sitting on my butt, stripped nearly naked (just week old BVD’s) and left sealed with your defecation can inside your box. Heat, cold, isolation, no communications, and constant noise, music, propaganda, coupled with verbal abuse by your captors is the norm, 24/7.

Almost makes club Gitmo sound like paradise, but it gets worse:

Then it was time for the dreaded waterboard. What I didn’t know then, but I do now, is that as in all interrogations, both for real world hostile terrorists (non-uniformed combatants) and in S.E.R.E. a highly trained group of doctors, psychologists, interrogators, and strap-in and strap-out rescue teams are always present. My first experience on the “waterboard” was to be laying on my back, on a board with my body at a 30 degree slope, feet in the air, head down, face-up. The straps are all-confining, with the only movement of your body that of the ability to move your head. Slowly water is poured in your face, up your nose, and some in your mouth. The questions from interrogators and amounts of water increase with each unsuccessful response. Soon they have your complete attention as you begin to believe you are going to drown.

And if a “student” POW escapes and is subsequently recaptured?

This time we went right to the water hose in the face, and a wet towel held tightly on my forehead so that I could not move my head. I had embarrassed my captors and they would now show me that they had total control. The most agonizing and frightful moments are when the wet towel is placed over your nose and mouth and the water hose is placed directly over your mouth. Holding your breath, bucking at the straps, straining to remain conscious, you believe with all your heart that, that, you are going to die. [snip]

S.E.R.E. training is not pleasant, but it is critical to properly prepare our most endangered combat forces for the reality of enemy capture. Was I “tortured” by the US military? No. Was I trained in an effort to protect my life and the lives of other American fighting men? Yes! Freedom is not Free, nor does it come without sacrifice. Every good American understands this basic principle of our country and prays for the young men and women who have sacrificed and are out on the front lines protecting us today.

The author writes that there may have been as many as 40,000 of these students who were “tortured” over the years in the SERE program. He also specifically mentions one pilot who wasn’t given the opportunity to utilize his SERE training:

Lt Tom “Stout” McGuinness of the VF-21 “Freelancers” went through S.E.R.E. training during my tenure. But when it came down to the crisis moment, his “interrogators” did not give him the waterboard. They merely went into the cockpit of American Airlines Flight 11, slashed Tom’s throat, and flew the first aircraft into the North Tower of World Trade Center on 9/11.

I must admit that facing the kind of training our soldiers had to endure in the SERE program sounds horrendous and may explain why I chose a different path in life. But I am forever thankful for those who willingly volunteer to rigorously train and bravely serve in order to protect the United States of America. Perhaps individuals who don’t care to receive the same type of education that many of our elite U.S. military forces once received should think twice before willingly becoming terrorists

Breitbart recently reported that the federal government is offering (through a Southern California charity) up to $6,000.00 per month (tax free) to house illegal immigrant children. This should come as no surprise to those who recognize that the rainbow hovering over President Obama’s Utopia contains nothing but a full spectrum of stupidity and a pot of gold at the end in D.C. Given this latest revelation in Obama’s growing immigration crisis, any adoption agencies currently struggling with the daunting task of placing American foster kids into good homes may wish to take heed of these developments.

Benswann.com called Crittenton FFA, which is located in Orange County and provides services for Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, and found that for those willing to a take in a child under the age of 16, you can receive up to $854.00 tax free per month. For those taking in a child over 16, the total is $1,008.00 per month in reimbursement. If you have a 5 bedroom house and can take in as many as 6 children, you can receive reimbursement of up to $6,054.00 per month tax free.

Perhaps not by tomorrow, but like everything else this administration touches, you can bet your bottom dollar that if expanded, this policy will eventually be met with undesirable consequences. According to adoptuskids.org, there are currently 104,000 American kids waiting to be placed into homes. So how will flooding the foster system with illegal immigrant children and offering a high monthly stipend to house them alter the chances of all these American children finding homes?

For the answer, just contrast the above advertised rates for illegal kids with the 2013/14 statewide foster rates for American children in California. By housing a child 0-4, a household will be reimbursed $657.00 per month, and for children over fifteen, the rate jumps to $820.00 per month. Those who house six older children would be reimbursed $4,920.00 per month. So choosing to house American children instead of illegal immigrants would result in $1,134.00 of lost potential income – or, to put it another way, the monthly payments for two very nice automobiles.

Just as misguided rent control laws result in housing shortages followed by higher rents and minimum wage laws cause surpluses of unskilled workers followed by higher unemployment rates, the laws of economics will find equilibrium here as well. By doing this, the Obama administration is giving illegal “dreamers” the upper hand over deserving American children who are dreaming of being placed into loving homes.

The Obama administration’s latest “solution” to an illegal immigrant crisis it created merely throws American foster kids under the Obama bus. Unfortunately, it’s becoming crystal-clear that the underside of Obama’s bus still has room for millions more.

Michael Bloomberg’s group “Everytown for Gun Safety” recently released a map claiming there have been 74 school shootings in the U.S. since the horrifying Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. The map was widely (and without hesitation) displayed by newsrooms all across America. The only problem is the map turns out to be a fraud and has been thoroughly debunked:

The saga of the fraudulent map of “school shootings” pumped out by Michael Bloomberg’s “Everytown for Gun Safety” group is fascinating, especially given how quickly the fraud was exposed and destroyed. This group was caught in a lie, pure and simple… and the lie went down so hard that CNN got in on the act.

Let’s forget about “Everytown” for a moment and instead focus on just one town – Chicago. Chicago has some of the strictest gun control laws in the nation, yet in 2012 it had the distinct honor of being named the murder capital of the United States. In Chicago, one needn’t ask, If a gun spontaneously goes off in a forest, is within five miles of a school and no one is around to get shot, can the data still be used in an Everytown map? There’s just no need go back two years and torture data to make it look like there were 74 school shootings – that same number can be achieved by going back less than two months (April 19th through June 15th), where there were 74 actual homicides (not just manufactured school shootings) using a gun within the city, as chronicled by a Chicago Tribune-owned website that keeps track of such data.

I’ve taken the liberty of creating a similar map utilizing this appalling data from Chicago (do take the time to zoom-in and read the names of the victims):

By blatantly fabricating data and making false promises of safety while attempting to restrict the rights of those who obey the law, all the while ignoring the root cause of violence from those who fail to obey any laws, Bloomberg’s “Everytown for Gun Safety” does a tremendous disservice to the families of the 74 names highlighted on the above map, as well as to all freedom-loving Americans.

Chicago’s gun woes are no surprise to anyone who has taken the time to read the work of John Lott, including his excellent book More Guns, Less Crime. And speaking of less crime, as bad as things still are, after recently being forced to issue concealed carry permits, Chicago saw its murder rate drop significantly, according to first-quarter statistics.

Like Detroit, Chicago has lived under Democrat rule for many decades and as such is a wonderful Petri dish for all things progressive. Detroit is the end-stage result of such progressive policy, and Chicago is clearly on a similar path. This highly toxic mix of strict gun control laws combined with long-term Democrat control of the city has turned out to be a very deadly combination.

Bloomberg naming his group “Everytown” may be truly fitting, because if the group does reach its goals, every town may eventually look strikingly similar to Chicago and Detroit.

Even before the last tidbits of silver and gold confetti could be swept away following New Year’s Eve celebrations, Americans were already starting off the year with fresh ObamaCare surprises. Some of the new “enrollees” in President Obama’s signature law are showing up at hospitals in parts of the U.S. and are being met with confusion as to whether or not they’re actually insured. Because of this, some are just leaving without needed treatment to avoid the enormous out-of-pocket expenses that would be incurred (which they would most likely pay anyway due to ObamaCare’s high deductibles), as Rick Moran discussed in this AT piece highlighting a Northern Virginia hospital.

And in Chicago, a doctor decided to move forward with a patient’s scheduled surgery not knowing if the costs would be covered by insurance:

Paperwork problems almost delayed suburban Chicago resident Sheri Zajcew’s scheduled surgery Thursday, but Dr. John Venetos decided to operate without a routine go-ahead from the insurance company. That was after Venetos’ office manager spent two hours on hold with the insurer Thursday, trying to get an answer about whether the patient needed prior authorization for the surgery. The office manager finally gave up.

[snip]

Venetos, a Chicago digestive system specialist, described “tremendous uncertainty and anxiety” among patients calling his office recently. Some thought they’d signed up for coverage but hadn’t received insurance cards yet. Others had insurance policies that were canceled and weren’t sure if their coverage had been reinstated after Gov. Pat Quinn decided to allow one-year extensions of canceled plans.

Venetos said he has decided to take a risk and provide care for these patients, at least until there’s less confusion about coverage.

So what exactly will happen once tens of millions of Americans start losing their employer-sponsored health plans due to ObamaCare, thus adding even more confusion to a once-working system? This is serious stuff, and if it continues, people will start dying in sizable numbers.

Just imagine if this disaster known as ObamaCare were instead BushCare under the previous administration. Rest assured, if people were to begin dying due to these same disastrous policies under George W. Bush, Americans would be reminded daily of the body count, just as they were during the Iraq War when he was commander and chief. Of course, not only would we be hearing about the daily BushCare body counts (along with his dwindling poll numbers); we would also be glued to the TV watching simultaneous impeachment hearings.

Don’t hold your breath while waiting for the mainstream media to provide any real tally of future ObamaCare-caused carnage.

By the end of 2014, perhaps Americans will be singing “Auld Lang Syne” while reminiscing about what once was the greatest health care system in the world

Hey Mr. President — if ObamaCare (ironically named the “Affordable” Care Act) is such a wonderful thing for the American people, why aren’t they treating it like the perquisite you claim it to be?

I ask this because you’ve been out there claiming that Republicans are willing to “harm” the American people by defunding ObamaCare and are trying to do so only to “stick it” to you. (Why do you always think everything is about you?) Also, your ally, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is saying that once Americans really start experiencing it (the “Affordable” Care Act), they just won’t want to let it go.

But the American people are starting to experience ObamaCare and they surely just want to regain the freedom to “let it go.” Due to this law’s costly burdens, thousands are being laid off, having their work weeks reduced to less than 30 hours or are being thrown out of their current health plans. And for the privilege of all of this, Americans will be stuck paying much more than before this monstrosity was enacted.

And how do the politically-connected Americans you surround yourself with feel about ObamaCare? Surely if your health care law is so beneficial, those with the most political capital must be running to the front of the line to cut in front of everyone else and climb on board?

To the contrary, your friends in high places are asking for (more like demanding) protection from ObamaCare. You’ve exempted Congress and most of its staff from this law. You’ve given thousands of waivers to a select few. Even some of your biggest supporters, the labor unions, now realize how harmful this law is to its members and are demanding special treatment — I’m sure they’ll get it even though they haven’t as of yet.

So let me see if I’ve got all this straight: you say that the Republicans in Congress are trying to “harm” the American people by attempting to legally exempt everyone from this law that they didn’t want in the first place. So does this mean that you are intentionally “harming” or attempting to “harm” Congress, unions and all of your favorite crony donors by illegally giving them exemptions from ObamaCare? I didn’t think so.

So, Mr. President, If ObamaCare is the panacea that you and your administration claim it to be, I have one more question. If you had a son, would his health plan look like ObamaCare?

In what appears to me as an attempt to keep the IRS and other Administration scandals out of the headlines, President Obama once again commented on the Zimmerman case and went a step further this time by saying: “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.” In one sense the President is correct and I suppose Trayvon could have been me as well — 27 years ago. No, I’m not a black American, but since there’s no evidence that the Trayvon case had anything to do with race, why is it that President Obama and the usual suspects continue to bring it up as if it did? The reason I say Trayvon could have been me is because I was seventeen once and truth be told, sometimes seventeen-year-olds make really, really stupid decisions. And sometimes those decisions are met with dire consequences.

Last week was the 27th anniversary of my 17th birthday. Back then a few close friends and I had decided to celebrate my 17th by going cruising in the urban-assault-vehicle (Mom’s tan station wagon) for the evening. That act alone had the propensity for trouble but to make matters worse, we made the foolish decision to bring along some water balloons for the ride.

After a few laughs, the fun came to a grinding halt when one of my friends tossed a water balloon at the town’s well known Pizza Peddler truck. Unfortunately, the driver had the window down and found no humor in the event. A long high-speed chase ensued across town, through a forty-acre field and ultimately ended with us backed into the end of a residential cul-de-sac. After a few moments of headlights facing one another it was clear the other driver wasn’t going to get out and face a car load of young men so I decided to slowly drive around the truck. A quick notation of our license plate number could have ended the event right there for the pizza truck driver, but his ego wouldn’t allow that and he instead chose to deliberately ram his truck into our car. Frightened, I stepped on the gas to get away and when bumpers locked, his truck spun around and flipped over.

A series of bad decisions on the part of all involved ended in disaster, yet remarkably no one was hurt or killed in this event. The police decided that all shared some blame and no charges were filed. These kinds of events unfold every day in America and sadly, sometimes the end result is serious injury or death.

The encounter between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman is one such story that sadly ended in tragedy. A neighborhood watchman, doing his job, saw someone he thought looked suspicious, reported it, followed the individual, was ultimately attacked and then defended his life. Was getting out of the car the best decision Zimmerman could have made? Perhaps not, but he broke no laws in doing so. Attacking Zimmerman was a terrible (and illegal) decision and evidence that Trayvon wasn’t the innocent boy portrayed by the media.

Obama also said: “If Trayvon Martin was of his age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk?” But this was not a stand-your-ground case. This was instead a pound-his-head-into-the-ground case and if Trayvon were being attacked in the same manner as Zimmerman was, Trayvon would have every right to defend his life in the same way Zimmerman did. After all, doesn’t concrete being used in this way qualify as a deadly weapon?

Attorney General Eric Holder said the Martin case forced him to have “the talk” with his 15-year-old son, again fanning racial flames by implying that Trayvon’s death was somehow about race. It would have been just as logical for Holder to talk with his son about child molesters in this case but doing so clearly wouldn’t serve his political objectives. One would hope that an Attorney General of the United States would use the opportunity of an event such as this to talk with his son about the consequences of one’s actions and emphasize that if you try to inflict a “whoop ass” on someone, they not only have the legal right to defend themselves but you just might get your “ass” killed during the process.

The mainstream media and a host of politicians have tried to exploit the Trayvon Martin tragedy as being about racism and guns, but in the end it’s just another story about youthful bad decisions gone awry. Trayvon Martin was a troubled young man who certainly didn’t deserve to die but as young men often do, he ended up making a terrible decision that cost him his life. America can do without the postscript of political opportunism.